Shilpa Rao

Shilpa Rao is a Molecular Medicine PhD student at the Cleveland Clinic. She has a degree in molecular biology from Loyola University Chicago and became involved with LARGE-PD after listening to a presentation from the Mata Lab for her PhD program. She was immediately intrigued and wanted to become involved in the initiative. Shilpa strongly believes that diversity is a necessity. In society, the need to accept and represent all people is acknowledged, but it can be overlooked in the science community. With the growth of genetic research, it is astonishing that so much of the representation has been from people of European ancestry. Therefore, she believes LARGE-PD is one of the strong drivers in today’s research that focuses on inclusivity, an initiative that will inspire more minority genetic consortiums to be made. In her free time, Shilpa enjoys being outdoors with her pup Elsie, going to local pizzerias and breweries, and watching horror movies.